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andrewstuart 7y ago
It's broken in the U.S. because government is not for the people - government is for the vested interests who have warped government policy by giving money to politicians and parties. That's why companies sometimes are in fact given money by the government in the U.S. rather than paying money to the government.
gamblor956 7y ago
What openly socialist country has lower income taxes in the US? I work in (international) tax, and I don't know of any, especially not once you take effective income tax rates into account (i.e., meaning the actual taxes paid as a % of income). I'm also unfamiliar with any socialist country having schools remotely as good as the University of California, VTech, UT, Ohio State, etc. I won't even try to list the many hundreds of amazing public K12 schools in this country. I'm also not familiar with any socialist country that has roads better than the US with anywhere close to the same level of utilization. Sure, roads in the US may be relatively bad, but they're also 1000x more utilized.
- TallGuyShort 7y ago
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  - gamblor956 7y ago
    In terms of universities, I'd agree the US has a very competitive edge, but in terms of the equivalent of K-12 I've seen a rather alarming lag across multiple states compared to the education I and my siblings had growing up. Every openly socialist country in the world is the size of a small state or middle-sized US city. You're literally comparing apples to carrots. If you were to name the country, I could pull the same type of statistics showing how bad the schools are in that country, how poor the roads are, how long the wait is for medical treatment. And in the elementary schools I work with (and mind you I live in a district with a good reputation in the region in a relatively wealthy area), I'd say it's less than 10% of the kids are reading even close to their grade level. Going to call bullshit on that one. My district wasn't all that great growing up and it was embarrassing when only 70% of my 5th grade class was reading at grade level. There are a few school district where less than half of students read at grade level, and they're almost all urban school district with large % of poor, ESL, immigrant student populations.

It's broken in the U.S. because government is not for the people - government is for the vested interests who have warped government policy by giving money to politicians and parties. That's why companies sometimes are in fact given money by the government in the U.S. rather than paying money to the government.

gamblor956 7y ago

What openly socialist country has lower income taxes in the US? I work in (international) tax, and I don't know of any, especially not once you take effective income tax rates into account (i.e., meaning the actual taxes paid as a % of income). I'm also unfamiliar with any socialist country having schools remotely as good as the University of California, VTech, UT, Ohio State, etc. I won't even try to list the many hundreds of amazing public K12 schools in this country. I'm also not familiar with any socialist country that has roads better than the US with anywhere close to the same level of utilization. Sure, roads in the US may be relatively bad, but they're also 1000x more utilized.

TallGuyShort 7y ago
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- gamblor956 7y ago
  In terms of universities, I'd agree the US has a very competitive edge, but in terms of the equivalent of K-12 I've seen a rather alarming lag across multiple states compared to the education I and my siblings had growing up. Every openly socialist country in the world is the size of a small state or middle-sized US city. You're literally comparing apples to carrots. If you were to name the country, I could pull the same type of statistics showing how bad the schools are in that country, how poor the roads are, how long the wait is for medical treatment. And in the elementary schools I work with (and mind you I live in a district with a good reputation in the region in a relatively wealthy area), I'd say it's less than 10% of the kids are reading even close to their grade level. Going to call bullshit on that one. My district wasn't all that great growing up and it was embarrassing when only 70% of my 5th grade class was reading at grade level. There are a few school district where less than half of students read at grade level, and they're almost all urban school district with large % of poor, ESL, immigrant student populations.